


Footfalls Echo Down the Passage

by Zoe Rayne (MontanaHarper)



Series: Footfalls [1]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Early Work, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-04-10
Updated: 1998-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Zoe%20Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ares' thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Footfalls Echo Down the Passage

**Author's Note:**

> **AO3 A/N:** This is an example of my very early fanfic. For historical purposes I'm leaving it as it was originally posted, including the summary. Even if a lot of it makes me cringe now.

> Footfalls echo in the memory  
> Down the passage which we did not take  
> Towards the door we never opened  
> Into the rose-garden.  
> \--T. S. Eliot

I can't remember exactly when I noticed you. Maybe it was the first time I was wholly and truly human, when my godhead was stolen from me and I was left vulnerable to every mortal torment. You became that torment.

Or maybe it was one of the many times I visited Xena, urging her to return to her rightful place as my lieutenant. You always seemed to be at her side, aspiring to be like her and mooning over the strawberry blonde with a devotion that bruised even my hard heart.

Maybe that was where it all started, watching your gaze follow Gabrielle wherever she went, when she only had eyes for Xena. That dedication stirred something far back in the hidden recesses of what, were I mortal, I would call my soul.

I remember the unshed tears that burned brightly in your eyes when Gabrielle laughed at the idea of loving you. I have never been so close to meddling in your life as I was that night. But I knew that you would not welcome my intervention. Her love would mean nothing to you if it did not come from her heart, of her own free will, and you would never forgive me if I hurt her, as I so ached to do, so I stayed my hand. That lesson was your first gift to me.

No matter the circumstance, no matter the personal pain or anguish you felt, you were all but incapable of even hurting another being; your clumsiness was merely a defense, meant to camouflage the heart of a poet. You were truly an innocent.

Some piece of me ached to touch that purity of heart, to let the darkest parts of me be bathed in the glow of your innocence. I should have known it could never be, but I couldn't bring myself to accept it. Even as my heart tried to tell me that a god and a mortal could not have what I wanted, I was plotting to achieve my desires. We are like the flame of a candle on the darkest night; mortals gather about us like moths, only to singe their wings or worse when they draw too close.

But you were going to be different. You were going to be my redemption, your purity saving me from my own misdeeds. What a ridiculous dream. Everyone knows that the God of War is irredeemable.

But not heartless and not without a tender spot. I watched you and I learned from your nearly infinite capacity for love. You risked your life for Gabrielle and ministered tenderly to her while she fought her inner demons. I watched you try to deceive her, to manipulate her heart to your own advantage. But in the end, your honor would not allow you to take what your heart most desired.

What a little fool Gabrielle was, and how blind to not recognize the blessing of your love. You laid at her feet the gift of yourself, and she refused it. I would have done anything for what you gave to her.

Anything.

I knew, in that instant, that all I could offer you was darkness and cold. You deserved more than that from a lover; you deserved beauty and warmth and someone who could cherish you in return. So perhaps you redeemed me after all.

You still held my attention, through your years. From your actions I learned truths that had eluded even the gods. And now I come to sit, as often as Hades will allow, in this distant corner of the Elysian Fields where I continue to watch you in secret and learn from you.

Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps mortals are the flame and we are but the moths, destined to be forever distant from the object of our desires lest we destroy ourselves.


End file.
